


and we walk through the gates

by wintervioleteye (hawkguyed)



Series: lay your ship bare [2]
Category: Death Race (2008), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Death Race AU, Gen, M/M, adrenaline-junkie Clint, come back and come back free, don't even do this at home, more villians, when Tony tells you to jettison please feel free to object but do it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkguyed/pseuds/wintervioleteye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil tells him to come back. Clint comes back with their freedom. (Death Race AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and we walk through the gates

**Author's Note:**

> For [surlelac](http://archiveofourown.org/users/surlelac) and [lucdarling](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flatlanddan</a>flatlanddan</a>,%20with%20thanks%20to%20<a%20href=) and everyone from feelschat <3\. 
> 
> This is the aftermath of [one more to freedom](http://archiveofourown.org/works/348695). What else can I say, really? There'll, idk, be an epilogue somewhere. Somewhere.

Phil rarely watches the races. He can always hear the screech of metal from where he is ensconced away in his workshop, and the empty spaces in other hangars speak for the lives lost to entertainment for the masses that have no regard for human lives, criminal or not. 

He tells himself that that’s the reason why he doesn’t want to watch the mechanical monsters race down narrow strips of tarmac, but Phil knows when he’s lying to himself. He’d watched one race back then, before his life had gotten thrown into chaos and he’d found himself here in the midst of it all. Back then he hadn’t minded so much when a car had spun out of control and gone up in a blaze of smoke and fire. 

The reason he doesn’t watch the races now is standing out just past the door of the workshop in a ridiculous sleeveless vest with red accents, leaning casually against the side of the _Hawkeye_ with a cigarette dangling loosely on his lips. 

Clint looks up and Phil twists away to look at the sad, forlorn engine that has been sitting on the bench for the past two days, just to avoid his driver’s eyes. But Clint comes over anyway, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. The man pauses to nudge lightly at Phil's neck, hand coming to rest against his hip. A smile comes unbidden to the mechanic's lips. 

"We're walking through those gates today, Phil." There's an infectious cockiness in that tone, a surety that Phil doesn't quite feel even though he knows Clint claims to be the world's greatest driver, and that he's claimed freedom for four people including himself (the teardrop marks are there on his arm, faded from time and marred by old burns and the latticework of healed cuts). 

Phil knows the danger out there. 

He’s fixed more holes on Clint’s car than he’d like to remember. He’s bandaged and cleaned countless burns and shrapnel lacerations on the driver’s body when the man had passed out on the makeshift cot in his workshop after some of the particularly difficult races. 

Phil slides an hand up Barton’s arm, where the most recent and more prominent teardrop marks are, and leans forward to press his forehead against the driver’s. 

“Come back. It’s an order.” 

Clint smiles this time, tugging Phil closer to press a kiss against his lips. Then he’s gone, vanished out the door, leaving Phil rooted to the spot in his cavern of metal bits and pieces with his heart in his mouth. He knows that this is going to be the last time Clint’s going to drive a car he’d spent two and a half days fixing.

\--

Phil doesn’t step out of the workshop until Natasha barges in, upsetting a box that had been too close to the door and scattering more than a dozen tiny scraps of metal. It pings all over the floor but Phil doesn’t comment, from where he’s standing in a corner beside the radio.

A shout of triumph comes from the radio and Phil’s grip on the already mangled metal in his hands twists it a little further. 

She growls something in Russian at him, hands closing over his arm as she drags him from where he’d hidden himself for the better half of the race. 

They’re two steps out of the hangar when something slams into the wall in a shower of sparks and loose bits of metal. Phil has two seconds to think ‘ _Clint_ ’ before Natasha’s earpiece squawks, the driver’s voice coming loud and clear over the chaos that would seem to be his doing, if the glimpse of that familiar shape zipping past is anything to go by. 

A headset is jammed haphazardly over his ears the minute he gets close to the track. It’s an odd feeling, being on this side of the race, peering at screens half-crusted with grime and dirt and hastily wiped with old rags. 

Natasha is already at her place at the console, leaving Phil standing behind the rest of his crew, eyes riveted to the single car that’s weaving in and out of more its clunker companions. 

Clint is good, his car sliding right and left as he deliberately slams the fender against the bulk of _Mjolnir_ beside him in a bid to push the car into a particularly nasty set of spikes. It's not entirely working because _Mjolnir_ is built for endurance and power to out last and out gun everyone else; instead, the _Hawkeye_ leaves a long, jagged line in the side of the car before abruptly pulling back, leaving the bulk of the other car to slam against the wall and shredding a good chunk of its defense on bent and broken spikes. 

Phil's heart is pounding. 

It takes Odinson a moment to recover, but by then Clint has already sped past, car skidding in a barely controlled slide that leaves everyone in the crowd on the edge of their seat as he maneuvers around. The _Hawkeye_ fits nicely in between two lit tiles, and someone at the console groans audibly. 

Apparently it’s not the first time he’s done this. 

“Damn it, Clint, they put those things there for a reason!” None of the crew seem genuinely surprised despite the string of obscenities that are tumbling from Tony’s lips and the frown on Steve’s face. 

Phil’s heard of what Clint does, mostly from Natasha, but he’s never seen it. He knows the driver plays hard and fast sometimes, especially on the last race, trading offense and defense for speed. It’s left many a hole that is inches away from fatal, but Clint is good enough that not many of them can touch him when he presses his foot down on the accelerator and revs a Stark-cobbled-together engine before disappearing in a cloud of dust. 

The mechanic isn’t quite sure he can watch this race to the end. It’s much easier being inside the workshop and tinkering with the next engine that Clint’s going to ruin and thinking about the next one that he’ll have to fix, not being here staring at the screens and watching his driver play Grand Theft Auto with his life at stake. 

_Mjolnir_ comes out of nowhere as Phil watches transfixed, Odinson’s guns rotating slowly to bear down on the _Hawkeye_ with that tell-tale glow of the weapons. It’s a whispered promise of destruction as the gun hums to life, screen glowing incandescent as the flare of those weapons blind everyone watching the race. 

Phil thinks he’d shouted Clint’s name, the sound drowned out by the thunderous boom of _Mjolnir_ ’s guns. 

Smoke fogs the screens and a sudden silence falls over the crowd, unnatural for an event normally so boisterous. Phil's grip is white-knuckled, nails digging into the palm of his hand and he thinks he's about to draw blood when a blur of red and tarnished silver barrels out of the haze, trailing wisps where the smoke still clings to ragged edges of twisted metal. 

Where the Hawkeye had once been smooth edges and curved sleek lines, it is now all jagged and torn, puffs of smoke escaping the fire Phil knows is hidden under the hood. There’s a line of holes right where Clint’s shoulder is and the mechanic wonders if the damage is limited to just the outer shell of the car. 

The crowd screams. 

Phil is vaguely aware of the rest of the team abandoning their posts at the console, clustering around him to watch the final moments of the race. It’s come down to this now, and Clint is still taking damage because _Trickster_ has pulled ahead of the downed _Mjolnir_ (Phil thinks that it might have been an EMP charge if the blue lines dancing across the tank’s front is anything to go by), guns rattling away as it peppers the back of Hawkeye with further damage, damage that will penetrate through the steel armor of the car. 

It’s a five-hundred-metre race to see which will happen first: the engine going up in flames or Clint pushing the battered Hawkeye past the checkered finish line. 

Someone scrabbles for a headset, then Tony is shouting into the mic, “Jettison your armor wall, it’s extra weight, damn it Clint!” 

Phil thinks that maybe Clint hasn’t heard, until he watches the _Trickster_ swerve to avoid a sudden flying hunk of metal. _Hawkeye_ fishtails at the sudden loss of weight before shooting ahead like an arrow loosed from an invisible bow, aimed straight and true for the finish line. For the first time since the headset had been jammed over Phil’s ears he hears the sound of Clint’s triumphant voice cackling in glee. 

This time there are no flashy maneuvers when the Hawkeye zips past the finish line with a single-minded determination, coming to a smoking stop inches away from the wall. 

“Get the extinguishers!” Steve’s voice is urgent and the team explodes into activity. Tasha is the first to vault over the barrier separating track from pits, attacking the tongues of flame with the fire extinguisher in a bid to stop them from spreading further. 

The inside of the car smells like burnt metal and melted rubber when Tony wrenches the door open. Clint’s side is a mess of blood and scattered shrapnel that Phil knows will take him a while to sort out but the driver is grinning a million-watt smile, smug and knowing. The crowd is cheering his win and he knows that he’s won the freedom of another man. 

Phil smiles back.


End file.
